Gustave Courbet

Gustave Courbet (June 10, 1819 at Ornans, near Besancon, Doubs - December 31, 1877 in La Tour-de-Peilz in Switzerland) is a French painter of the nineteenth century, leader of the Realist movement Engaged in political movements of his time, he was elected member of the Commune of 1871. "I am fifty years old and I have always lived in freedom; let me end my life free; when I am dead let this be said of me: 'He belonged to no school, to no church, to no institution, to no academy, least of all to any régime except the régime of liberty".

This picture is one of the most mysterious monumental works of Courbet. After the death of his brother, Juliette Courbet found this huge canvas rolled in the workshop and donated it to the City of Paris. The scene shows the departure of firefighters to a starting fire on a street in Paris at night.
But the idea of ​​the picture is also linked to Courbet's...

At the time of the Hague School, the French painter Courbet enjoyed a certain notoriety. He styled himself as a rebel and refused to align himself with any specific style. Instead he began a one-man movement: ‘Realism’. He tried to render the ruggedness of nature by applying the paint to the canvas spontaneously, often with a palette knife. He painted...

1844-1854, Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France. In 1854, already in a retrospective look at his work, Courbet wrote to his patron from Montpellier, Alfred Bruyas:. "I've done in my life many portraits of me as and when I changed state of mind. I have written my life in a nutshell. " The Wounded man endorsed this subjectivity by investing the romantic theme of...